EASTER ROAD boss says he was impressed by Dundee United's character, not just because their team is laden with five fellow Irish stalwarts.

PAT FENLON admits he modelled his Hibs rebuild on Dundee United – because of their character, not his countrymen.

The Easter Road boss is seeking revenge for a 3-0 day-one doing at the hands of Peter Houston’s side this afternoon.

He’s
doing it from a position of strength, having turned round the capital club’s season to the point where the top of the league beckons.

And the former Bohemians boss paid the Arabs the ultimate compliment, admitting their team – laden with five fellow Irish stalwarts – were an inspiration to him.

Fenlon
– who has half a dozen of his own now from his homeland – said: “I know
them all and they’re good honest lads. I had Sean Dillon for a few seasons at Shelbourne, I know Gavin Gunning well from when he was a kid and Richie Ryan played against us in the League of Ireland.

“Jon
Daly I didn’t really see a lot of when he was a schoolboy player but they are a talented group of players who have done really well for United.

“I know from talking to Peter they are great about the place, with Willo Flood probably the most infectious personality.

“We’ve
been trying to strike the right balance at Hibs and we probably looked closely at United, who they had as characters and how they affected the dressing-room as well.

“Maybe
it’s a coincidence but there’s a few Irish boys in there as well. There
will be a lot playing against us and it will be blood and thunder but they get on quite well off the park, most of them, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence.”

While the rest of the country had eyes on Celtic v Barca on Wednesday night, consummate pro Fenlon was watching United at Motherwell – and he admits he’s witnessing a typical United revival from a sticky patch.

Pat missed Celtic's clash with Barca to watch the Arabs

He said: “They lost a lot of key players for periods of time and unfortunately they are getting them all back at the moment.

“At the start I said I thought United and Motherwell would be the main challengers to Celtic and I think that will still happen. You can see United’s confidence coming back.”

Nothing
to come close to matching the transformation in his own side since that
August 5 mauling, though. It’s the only SPL game in which they haven’t scored and Fenlon admitted he expected a reaction. He shrugged: “As players, if you had come off the pitch and that had been acceptable, then you would have had a problem.

“I knew with the type of character we had that wouldn’t be acceptable. They knew from our end it wasn’t and they knew themselves.

“They had gone through pre-season and worked very hard so to go out and perform at that level was very disappointing.
That’s the type of player we have in there at the moment, the type of character, that they want to drive each other on.

“As
players and managers, you know on certain days it’s not going to go for
you – sometimes you have to say we weren’t good enough today or we didn’t get a little break.

“But that performance and how it happened wasn’t good enough and the response from the players since has been fantastic.

“We’ve
had some cracking results and performances. We’ve dug out results we might not have deserved and dropped points we feel we should have got. That’s football and you have to accept it but you can’t accept where we were last season and in the first game of this season. We didn’t do ourselves justice.”